The Scraper Arrives Back Home.

This is the 27th and final episode of the Scraper's Diary, continued from the previous post.


Sunday,  April 13th, 1947

We are in one of those long, twelve-tabled carriages.
Ginger and I sit at one table, Jack is opposite, across the corridor. Ray and Taff are reading at another, and a solo school is going strong next to them, Stan, Bob, Jock and Ken. A few more of our blokes are situated at strategic points, while two tables are occupied by some arty civvies who travelled over on the boat, a perfumed black man, a precious man in blue, and two sycophantic women.


"What's trumps?"

" . . . a perfectly divine little man who cooked like an angel . . . "

"entrance to a mine, in five letters - - -"

"Cor, - - -  me,  I've saved the wrong bloody suit"

"Ever read this? It's a smashing book".

"No darling, no trouble at all; he just said, 'anything to declare, sweetheart', and I said, 'no, nothing at all', and I walked right through".

"Got a pen, old man?"

"No bombs fallen round here, makes a change, don't it?"

"Remember that tart in Husum?"

"Keep your mind on the bloody game, will you".

"Home at last. Good old England again".

"I darned nearly scuttled myself, when we went in".

"Couldn't speak a word of English".

"You might give me a gasper, darling, I'm positively dying for a smoke".

"One more revoke from you, Say, and you'll get . . . ."

" only two cigarettes too . . . ."


And the dead trees stretching themselves before the real awakening, and the few, high, expansive clouds in a dreamless sky.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

I have compiled a separate list of all the articles bought on the black or grey markets in Germany during the six weeks we spent there; others in the band bought - and stole - far more. In my pack and music case I have 2 watches, camera equipment, a lighter, some lace, toys, jewellery, a pen, an electric iron, German stamps, sheet music, wooden plates, books and scent. I spent a grand total of 1185 cigarettes, one ounce of tobacco, thirteen bars of soap, two bars of chocolate and three and a quarter pounds of coffee. These cost me the princely sum of £3.1.10.

Not bad, but, as I said, this is modest compared to some blokes' loot.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

I can't read anymore for a bit. The bright sunlight on my face draws my eyes outward to the swelling hills and the rich brown fields. Old hedgerows reflecting the sun, two brilliant lovers laughing in a field, a quiet stream shuffling over stones; the sudden, cool blazing of a bridge, fields still flooded here and there, and trees whose bareness in the new warmth seems a freedom rather than a martyrdom. English telegraph wires and England racing into my Spring life at fifty miles an hour, and laughing away there, chuffed to busting.

I feel fine and clean and unusually young. The country is lovely and it is England. All I want now is a drop of leave. And a drop of tea, how could I forget that, a cup of tea.

Cuxhavn, Harburg, Celle, Minden, Bad Oeynhausen, Bielefeld, Hamm, Duesseldorf, Wuppertal, Moenchen-Gladbach, Cologne, Dortmund, Osnabrueck, Oldenburg, Wilhelmshavn, Bremen, Verden, Muensterlager, Soltau, Hamburg, Husum, Itzehoe, Rendsburg, Kiel, then Hamburg and Cuxhavn again.

And now it is all history.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

We are now at Basingstoke, for half an hour. A line of us in the buffet discovered a mirror on the opposite wall, which reflected all of us at once. all waiting to be served mugs of tea.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Larkhill, Royal Artillery Camp, Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire,  Monday, April 14th, 1947

The sun is shining brightly. The lady in the cigarette shop asks how we enjoyed the trip. The lady in the newsagent's asks how the weather was, 'it's been so terrible here'. The lady in the chemist's says that I can't get quinine without a prescription.

This is England, and the sun is shining.

In the cookhouse, the tables are dirty, the meat is tough, the greens are uneatable. The washing up water is dirty and insufficient. The A.T.S. servers are rude.

This is Larkhill, my Larkhill, and I'm back, and I know I'm back.

The Scraper Is Going Home!

Aboard S.S. 'Empire Rapier'    -   Saturday, April 12th, 1947.

I am snatching a few moments to write this after dinner, which looked like it was meant to be a half-way mark between the food of the last six weeks and that to which we are returning.

Everything about this voyage is smoother and slicker than the last. The boat is faster and the weather is as different from the snow and gales of six weeks ago as possible. There is a pretty stiff wind blowing, but the sun is shining gaily and the sea is quite warm, and, above all, the table stays still.

We have a wide, curving wake of pure, milky foam and nothing seems to impede the almost visible purposefulness of the ship. The sky is unclouded and the visibility excellent. There is no ice floating about.  Instead, we got stuck on a sandbank for two hours during the night.

Psychologically speaking, one of the most interesting symptoms of our homeward sickness - and a sign more finite than the voyage that we have left Germany - is the sudden generosity of the band. We were issued with forty cigarettes each this morning, and since then I have accepted five from other lads - more than I have been offered in the last three weeks! I suppose that it's natural enough, but I have smoked far too may cigarettes already.

Most of the blokes aboard are grouphappy, or else going on leave, but there is no air of gaiety, that air that seems to be so obvious to lady journalists. We are just going to England, that's all, because the ship happens to be going there.

A bloke two bunks away is torturing a mouthorgan, and, incidentally, me.  Smoking is prohibited down here; every soldier in sight has a lighted fag in his mouth. The ship is trembling with unspeakable and unnecessary emotion.

Memo to self: must decide what articles to declare, and what story to tell if found out.

o-o-o-o-o-o

ENGLAND!  -  Sunday, April 13th, 1947

"Oh to be in England, etc ".
I have said that several times lately and even after only six weeks of exile, England holds something that is more than just a welcome.

I am sitting in the shabby carriage of a slow train, looking through the dirty windows at the furtive smoke insinuating its pollution into the fresh fields' laughter.

And yet it is not as slow, and the seats are softer, and the fields yet smile, and even the smoke breathes purpose more than there.

The squat, smoky houses by the way are squalid and sullen in the sun.
And yet they do not cringe in the air, and there are not acres of devastation and despair as there have been there.

Doncaster. The sun is bright, and Spring seems to have kissed our return, and laid her benediction upon us. The ground, cindery, is strewn with litter between the rails. Scraps of paper, dog ends, orange peel, the rails have rusty sides and careworn hypnotic faces. A pile of deserted mailbags lies disconsolately on platform five, oozing melancholy.

This is England, we are home, and it is in no sense bitterly, but a conscious knowing of the land, and yet loving.

We docked at eleven thirty last night and at eight this morning we joined the tail of the queue before the customs shed, growing steadily more and more apprehensive.

We arrived at the head of the queue.

"Any spirits. cameras, binoculars, or watches?" said the man.
"No", we said.

He looked at us.

"Oh", he said, "Band, eh? Go straight through" and doubtless added "too dumb to smuggle", under his breath.

The train was waiting by the quayside. We got aboard and waited; the train moved a few hundred yards and stopped. We waited.

Now going through the yards at Doncaster, I have made up my winnings at solo to one pound in English money. The sun is shining courageously on the page, but I cannot find a really comfortable writing position.

Roll On. Bloody Roll On.

o-o-o-o-o-o

There is just one short instalment to come before the Scraper reaches his destination and therefore the end of this diary. I will post this tomorrow.

The Scraper's Diary, Wednesday April 9th, 1947

Rendsburg

Last night Gunner Say dropped a bottle of the scent I had bought on the black market and broke the cap. I therefore extorted forty cigarettes from him and gave him the bottle. I changed the cigarettes into 200 Marks.

o-o-o-o-o

Thursday, April 9th, 1947

Yesterday morning we walked round the town and found many lovely pieces of silver jewellery that we were far too impecunious to purchase. I bought a cigarette box and some German stamps from a little shop by the bridge. I walked into the shop intending to ask for pre-war stamps that showed Hitler's face; when I was inside I realised that I had no idea how to say this in German and the Philatelist seemed to understand neither English nor my efforts at speaking French. As this was probably the last opportunity I had to buy stamps, I scratched around in the remnants of my schoolboy Latin and tried that.  To my surprise and great delight he understood me and replied in Latin. Neither of us could be called fluent, by any stretch of the imagination; nevertheless, I successfully purchased the stamps I wanted.

The main shopping street here is incredibly quaint; one stretch of it is merely a cobblestone pavement about ten feet wide, with shops staring each other out on either side.

In the evening we received another Naafi ration of cigarettes, also our free issue of fifty. There was an immediate exodus to the station, and ninety percent of the cigarettes were disposed of.

After a cream cake supper in the Naafi, Mike and I went to the cinema, and we saw "Perfect Strangers".

o-o-o-o-o

Friday, April 11th, Cuxhavn

Baggage Room

I am sitting on top of a three-tier luggage rack in the baggage room at Cuxhavn docks. Rumour has it that we do not board ship until ten, so I shall endeavour to summarise the events of the past two days.
It's a difficult task, the light is poor, the seat is hard, and I have already been interrupted three times to enter into discussion with my fellow loafers, or to add an air of erudition to their impenetrable ignorance.

We visited Rendsburg station black market for the last time on Wednesday evening, and spent an amusing half hour inspecting the various goods that the Germans eagerly proffered us, without having any intention, or wherewithal, to purchase them. In a moment of absentmindedness I filled my pipe, and then, in a moment of weakness, offered my pouch to a labourer who had been earnestly drawing on an empty pipe for many minutes. I looked down and found a queue of four pipes waiting expectantly beside him. When they had all been satisfied and supplied with matches, I held up the pouch and said "100 Marks?" A bloke took it, punched it, prodded it, then tipped the contents onto the table. Having scratched around in this for a minute, shaking his head the while, he offered me thirty. I took thirty-five and kept the pouch.

The light is now worse, all that is shed on this paper being the willing rays of a 60 watt bulb some twelve feet away that has to illuminate fifteen feet the other side of itself. I doesn't seem to be concentrating on the job and the  fellows seem dim and vague, a crowd of meaningless shadows, drifting in infinite boredom.

Yesterday morning, we loaded the lorries, and drove to Kiel.

Mike, Len and I hitchhiked the laborious five miles into the town only to find that the shops were shut.

There was a string concert last night, which, considering that it was the first for three weeks, went well.
Supper was laid on for 9.30. We arrived at the cookhouse at 9.50 and found the place in darkness. We trooped up to the YMCA, which was also shut; we returned to the billet and packed the instruments with the loot in the boxes; we are now hoping and praying that these boxes pass through customs unopened, as band kit. Lights out at 11.30, after one or two altercations with late comers. Reveille this morning was at five.

Having an hour off this afternoon, Mike, Len and I went round the shops, in a desperate attempt to get rid of our last marks without suffering a loss. stamp shops seemed to be non-existent, so i bought two large, utterly unpackable wooden plates, only to stumble over two stamp shops five minutes later.

Now we are off to the Naafi gift shop, I have 10 shillings in my pocket.

The Scraper's Diary, Tuesday, April 8th, 1947

The Scraper, a young conscript and musician, is on a six week tour of the British Army of the Rhine; he and the band are travelling from camp to camp, playing in make-shift concert halls, officers' and OR's messes and churches. But mostly they are bored, making use of the black market whenever they can, playing cards and drinking. The Scraper keeps a diary throughout.


The tour is almost over.

Rendsburg

A most interesting day, apart from - or in spite of - the monologue from Gunner Say, about his amatory experiences of the last few days, and the after-effects thereof.

We loaded the lorries at eight thirty this morning, drove to the barracks for breakfast and then on to Rendsburg. We are staying in the erstwhile ENSA hostel here, the third hotel in three places. Sheets, tablecloths, hot water, waitresses . . . . .

Mike and I went out to see the sights this afternoon. We discovered a fair, almost hidden by mobs of children. I tried my hand, unsuccessfully, at hoopla and Aunt Sally. Mike won a shapeless, purposeless piece of metal at the Aunt Sally. Most of the stalls were merely pigs in pokes. You bought little screws of paper at 20 Pfennigs each and if they bore a number you won a suitably insignificant prize. Most of the prizes were cheap, useless things, rosettes, cheap dolls and penknives and the like. One prize, rated pretty highly, was a teat for a baby's bottle.

There were none of the English side shows like roll-'em-downs, rubber-ball-rollings and lotteries; nothing but a few tawdry roundabouts. I felt a general air of "I must enjoy myself, even if it is all hollow."

Having seen all we wanted of the fair, we went slowly on to the Naafi and sat in the lounge reading. Soon after, a funeral cortège passed the window.

First came a ragged procession of men in greys and browns, all wearing bowlers or caps. Gradually the colours darkened and then came four men in black frock coats and top hats; then came the wreaths, reverently carried by sad-looking elders; then came the hearse, draped in black and drawn by two black horses in black-plumed harnesses. Directly behind the hearse was an old lady, leaning on the arm of a young man, weeping proudly and profusely. Behind them came three young women with wet eyes and handkerchiefs. A black robed priest followed wearing what seemed to me to be a cardinal's black biretta.

A ragged assortment of men and women followed, in dark clothes or with black armbands and finally, there was a closed carriage, in which four black-clad old women were talking animatedly.

The whole procession was in unrelieved black, with a few greys and browns sprinkled through here and there, except for the bright red shorts worn by six men who marched, three on each side, by the side of the hearse, heads bowed. There was no sound except for the shuffling of feet and the ragged rattle of the horses' hooves.

They passed beyond our field of vision and we sat down gain. Len started playing some light song. I  picked up my book again.

"Quaint, these continental customs", said the W.V.S. lady, and went back to her book-sorting.

The Scraper's Diary, April 6th, 1947

Easter Sunday,  Itzehoe

It has occurred to me that I haven't really described any of the tour, as I set out to do.

This is largely because to a string-player like myself, it is more like an unconducted, paid Cook's Tour than a tour of duty. I have played three times in the last fortnight; once in the O.Rs dining hall at Munsterlager and once in the Sergeant's Mess here, and once unofficially; a few little quartets I had arranged from Orlando Gibbons and Giles Farnaby.

We travel about, but journeys are much the same everywhere. We have our own coach, and I win money at whist every time we travel for more than half an hour.

Having travelled away from the Rhineland, through Brunswick, to Schleswig-Holstein, I still feel that it is the character of the country that is missing, the air has no personality. Further North, the people seem better fed and clothed, more contented, the shops have more in them. Probably they endured no shell fire here.

The soldiers try to make what they can out of the people and the people try, more successfully, to get all they can from us. The only air about is lethargy, dangerous lethargy.

I have become accustomed to bomb damage, a strange tongue, and traffic on the right by now. The only things that still seem strange are the black market and the tarts.

As I found occasion to say this morning, this is indeed a country of 'brothelly' love.

And now it is Easter Sunday morning and the maids have just cleaned the room, Mike is lying on his bed, reading, dictionary at hand, and I am sitting at the table, writing this, thinking nothing in particular and feeling hungry.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Husum, Easter Monday

We arrived here this morning after a four hour journey. The country up here is flat and flooded and most uninspired in the cheerless light of a wet day. The streets are long and quaint and the windmills only add to the Dutch character of the views. The string orchestra has just finished playing in the barracks here, amid ribald remarks from our overworked military and dance-band colleagues.

Two or three days ago, Mike, Len, Derek and myself decided that, if opportunity arose, we would get drunk on spirits before we returned to Larkhill, partly in vague celebration, and largely because spirits are so much cheaper over here. The opportunity arose last night, when, by sundry wangling, we obtained permission from the manager to buy gin, which is normally reserved for sergeants only.

By going to the serving hatch in turns, in order not to arouse the barman's suspicions, we managed to buy and consume six gins, two cakes and two German cocktails (which we decided were constituted of cascura and coughcure) each. One of the cocktails was contributed by a slightly merry B.M., and we were quite merry ourselves by this time. We soon fell to singing and telling stories. Mike bought a round of beer, which I refused to drink and the three of them became rather drunk on the strength of it. Supper came and went and Mike and Derek grew rather uncontrollable. Derek started playing the piano quite indescribably and Mike wandered round telling a revolting story, which took him ten minutes to finish - once.

Eventually, they were persuaded to go to bed. Derek, having been assisted to his room, insisted on going round most rooms, saying good night to people. After two of these trips I locked him in his room.

Mike was a little pugnacious and unsteady, but otherwise normal.

Meanwhile, I was feeling almost sober, but I had a headache, and my eyes refused to focus on anything without a struggle. However, having finally seen Mike, Derek and Len in bed, I retired myself and closed my eyes. Immediately I did that, everything began to move to the left, at first slowly and then accelerando, until I opened my eyes suddenly to stop fainting, and when everything skidded to a halt, it was almost as bad.

Eventually, I got to sleep and slept heavily until seven. When I woke, I felt like an innocent, albeit a bit bruised.

There's been a rumour that we'll reach Larkhill next Sunday night.

Roll on, roll bloody on.

The Scraper's Diary, Friday, April 4th, 1947, Itzehoe

No. 22

There have been so many enquiries as to who the Scraper was, that, even at this late stage, I should tell you a bit more about him. He was a young conscript, serving in the British Army after WW II. He was a trained classical musician, who was sent on a tour of duty, lasting six weeks, to BAOR (British Army of the Rhine) with an RA band, to perform for British troops stationed in Germany, as well as in Church and concert halls,


His diary has very little to do with the music they played, it is much more a first-hand account of the situation he found himself in.  






Good Friday,

only there's nothing specially good about it.

True, the pub is good, but the table-cloth is patched. The water is hot but the waste-pipe doesn't run well,  and the chambermaids don't talk English. Oh well, I expect we'll get over it.

I won six shillings at solo on the journey here, these bus trips are quite a useful source of income to me.

Tea was hilarious, The four at our table,  Mike, Len, Derek and me,  indulged in a lengthy bit of horseplay with a small dish of sugar. I put all into my cup and then Len seized it and divided it unequally between us. The matter was forgotten until tea was poured out. We tasted it.

"What is it", said Derek, "Bicarb?"
"Persil, I think," I said.

The waitress explained that the little dish had held salt. We wont forget in a hurry.

We went into a German pub, in order to test the pulse of the Black Market over a glass of unmentionable beer. A very low dive. On one table a game of expletive-riddled poker was in progress. At another, a huddle of old men were deeply into serious, hissed, discussion, while, at a third, Bill and Ray were trying to drink enough to forget the girls they were with. Several more tarts were lounging about, bored.

We sat at a table with two unshaven road sweepers, and soon got down to business. I changed sixty cigarettes into three hundred marks and made an appointment for tomorrow.

Quite a Hemingway set-up. Real honky-tonk. Real low.

o-o-o-o-o-o

Easter Saturday, April 5th

I kept thinking about those two girls, the ones with Bill and Ray last night. I mean, they were so young and yet they seemed to have no youth. They weren't common tarts, as I have since found out, but they will be soon. They're only novices, they just sat there, drinking, saying very little, and understanding the loud, self-conscious conversation of their pick-ups only in gesture, not words. Apparently, they had seen Bill and Ray and said "Kaffee?" and that was all that was needed.

They left the inn before us, but the lads didn't get in until the small hours.

We went to the inn again this afternoon, to meet some stockings, watches and a case. I bought a case and we sat drinking until the stockings arrived.

When they turned up, half an hour later, we were surprised at the scale of operations. We were ushered into a back room and the two salesmen set up shop. They unpacked their cases and laid plastic raincoats and stockings over chairs and tables. Raincoats 200 cigarettes, stockings 60 cigarettes and ladies underwear (sets)  150 cigarettes; they were no amateur black marketeers, but fully-fledged professionals.
They would not barter or lower their prices. They told me that the raincoats were made for them at a special factory, and that they could get me any number of them. The stockings, apart from some Parisian ones of Rayon were all fully-fashioned silk, smuggled from the Russian zone. I was asked whether there were many troops at our next halt, - Kiel - , so that they could tell if it would be worthwhile to visit the place on business.

The episode had one amusing sidelight; they were discussing some coffee and chicory I had, in German,
and I managed to understand one sentence: "these Englishmen can't tell vinegar from coffee". I could make remarks about German tea.

Things had ben conducted with so much guile on both sides, and with such intensity, that I leant against the doorpost for a minute when I got outside and felt quite dizzy. The street still lay in the quiet sunshine and the kids still played in the gutter and on the hard old cobblestones. I could hardly believe that I was within ten feet of a very squalid section of commerce.

I shrugged and walked on to the Y.M.C.A. That's how things are here. Very fair of face but with a real sickness at heart. The black market and the prostitutes aren't an illness in themselves, but a symptom of a very real national disease. There have been occasional eruptions of this illness while we have been here.
Riots in Dusseldorf a fortnight after we left. Razor gangs on one side and rape on the other in Osnabruck, two days before we arrived. More razor gangs and theft in Oldenburg.

And yet the air is peaceful and fresh. Spring is abroad, and the land itself smiles; but somehow there is something.........
It's as vague as that.

I buy a tablet of soap in the Y.M.C.A. for fivepence. I walk round to the pub and the innkeeper's brother gives me twenty five marks for the piece of soap that cost me fivepence. A mark equals sixpence at current exchange, but I can't exchange it. I can only buy twopence worth of goods with it.

The Scraper's Diary, Tuesday 1st April, 1947

chapter 21

Münsterlager, Tuesday morning,

We got back to Münsterlager at 1.15 am. It was a most successful outing, I am writing this with a stylo pen I bought, among other things.

Two rather amusing incidents occurred, in one shop I advanced to the counter and was greeted with  "Good Afternoon, sir",  in faultless Oxford English. There was no time to think of a new gambit, so I enquired  "Do you speak English? I wonder if you have any opals?......"

The other incident occurred in a scent shop. The proprietor proffered three bottles invitingly and said  "parfum, ver' nice, good smell?"

"Yes", I said, "It stinks".

He nodded and, I'm sure, added a new word to his salesman's vocabulary.

String orchestra will play at 12.30. Our first job since Sunday week last. Have polished all buttons, and blancoed all webbing equipment. Moreover, I have shaved. Moreover, I have pressed both service dress and battle dress. I'm becoming almost like a poor imitation of a soldier.

Morning was nothing brilliant, but it was dry and warm, and passing lorries left us marooned in a cloud of dust, and the sky was too clear. I didn't notice how still it was until a gentle breeze decided to announce itself.

The breeze liked the place and brought some of his friends, the clouds, along, and then, for half an hour, the sun was obscured and a thorough shower of rain baptized the camp.

I left the block at half past three, to have my first bath since we reached Germany, and my heart and mind were cleansed by the new innocence of everything;  where every birch twig swelled into a bud, a pearl lay silently. The roads were fresh and lorries left no dust to dim the fretted filigree of the trees' tracery against the gently moving fronds of cloud, and my heart sang of Spring and love, and laughed at its own ingenuousness.

For no reason, save that the thought came to me unheralded, I wish to protest against the application of the word 'wholesome' to a person. It merely means 'unresponsive, unemotional and undersexed. I'd sooner be unwholesome than so negative.

o-o-o-o-o-o

Münsterlager, Thursday, April 3rd

Today, our last here, has been marked by a rash of rumours.

First, the report went round that we were to parade at ten for the purpose of changing our battle dresses before the time when we have to pay for all replacements. We were also to take our service dress so that the tailor could press it. We were also to receive our free issue of cigarettes. As it grew nearer the time the reports grew faster and more erratically.

Eventually, we received an order! We were to take our service dress to be pressed. Soon after we came back from the tailor, we were served with our NAAFI ration (forty cigarettes, the sergeants got eighty). As to free issue of kit change, we are still uninformed, but there is a new rumour, that we are not sailing until the fourteenth.

Roll on, bloody roll on.

The Scraper's Diary, Saturday March 29th, 1947, Munsterlager

Munsterlager

We reached here, strange as it may seem, by the scheduled time, by the right roads, and in time for the dance!

As the members of the card school are broke, the losses at solo will not be payed until we get next week's money.

This place is known as the "Larkhill" of Germany, being on Luneburg Heath. Except in that the camp appears to hold some life, I agree. Except also, of course, that there are only three of us in this room, and that the lavatories aren't frozen. I have intended to mention for some time now that German inventiveness and thoroughness has made even details in barracks here better than British creativeness can make details at home. Windows open and shut properly and are double-glazed. Bathrooms function efficiently, as they are meant to do, as do electrical switches.

For gadgets, buy German.

o-o-o-o-o

Sunday, March 30th, 1947

We went for a walk this afternoon to see the place in daylight. It is a small, straggly town, with few shops. There are two cinemas, one British, one German, but there is no show tonight. The Salvation Army Club opens at 6.30,  the NAAFI, a mile and a half away, at six. However, there are some promising woods hereabouts and we are soon going to explore.

Three in a room; I had to sign for the windows being in good order. I have just swapped our bust bulb for some stranger's good one.

Very pretty girls here, also many Poles and V.D. posters.

It is quite warm, the air is soft with the smell of pine trees, and the heavy fragrance of Spring, subtly sharpened by a faint suggestion of petrol..........  Symbolic, if you insist.

o-o-o-o-o

Hamburg, Monday, March 31st, 1947

As the entire band is off duty today, the Band Master obtained passes for us and we are spending a day's leave in Hamburg. This is a two hours' journey from Munsterlager, but it's worth it.

The town, very largely, does not exist.

I've used all the expressions I know to describe the devastation of German cities, but Hamburg is flattened, - albeit to a lesser degree than Bremen, - over a larger area than any place I've seen yet.

It has been a fine Spring day. Warm and happy, the temperatures many degrees above freezing point,  and yet there are large chunks of ice still on the river, and occasional patches of snow in the country ditches. Heavy clouds rolled up after tea and after an egotistical announcement of lightning and thunder, it rained hard. The sun set in a livid jaw of sky and it's nearly dark now. Dark and wet. Heigh-ho.

We did quite a nice lot of business this afternoon in several jewellers' shops, had tea, and are now waiting patiently in the NAAFI  gramophone room for a Beethoven piano sonata to dry up so that we can hear the March Slav (Tchaikovsky) and (Sibelius') Swan of Tuonella.

The Scraper's Diary, Friday, March 28th, 1947

On the Bank of the River Aller

A pleasant, peaceful spot, the river swift-flowing-by, a slight icing of bubbles skating downstream, a protective huddle of old, multi-coloured houses across the river, to my left, screened behind a road of countryside trees, that somehow are a parade, and make the scene German. The sun has temporarily resigned to the rain; bulbous clouds, which, flowing effortlessly beyond me, show no sign of their inherent boredom. The grass ahead is rarely green and trodden to the grey earth's humility; away, by the turn of the river, two bare trees stand guard over a deserted cottage, and beyond, the fringes of a forest hide the horizon behind their skirts.


When I sat here, a small boy, muddy clogs in hand, came and sat nearby, and watched me with a grave intent. Three of his playmates have now joined him and they are chattering their supremely important matters in their incomprehensible tongue and lying on their bellies, watching a backwater's sloth.


Two disdainful chickens are beachcombing closer and closer to me; the children are paddling in the shallows.


I must get up and turn to the Barley bridge with its damaged stonework and I must go up to the old philosophical track to the road, and travel. I must move on again.

o-o-o-o-o

We saw some rather nice handbags in a shop window, and so we went inside, saw two more on a shelf and started negotiations. I started conventionally;

"Do you speak English?"

"No".

"OK".

Stumped, we thought a minute, while the assistant leaned on the counter, rather embarrassed. I pointed to the handbags and looked 'query'. She handed me one. We inspected it and approved.

"How much ?" I said.

"?", she said.

"How much ?" I said, "Combien ?" "Marks?"


"Ah," she said, "Zwanzig Mark".


"Twenty ?", I said.


"Ja".


We went into a huddle then.


"Nein Deutschgeld", I said. "You take cigarettes?"


"Zwanzig Mark", she said. " Und zwei kilos paper".


"Nix paper", I said, "cigarettes?"


We went on at this for ten minutes, neither of us understanding much of the other's talk and giggling wholesale. We gathered that one gave twenty marks and two kilos paper for a bag. She gathered that we had enough marks, no paper, and a few cigarettes. She also gathered that we were a bit daft.

Eventually we bribed her with soap and bought a bag each for twenty marks and twenty cigarettes each.


We retired to a pub and bought some foul German beer that tasted like acorns and coca-cola. Armed with a glass of this, I went into an alcove and asked a German if he felt any inclination to purchase some cigarettes. He didn't seem too keen, in broken English, but condescended to give me a low price for seventy.


Next, we went to another shop and bought some nice brass ashtrays. I asked the lady if she had any rings. She said something most Aryan, and "and an actress said 'after Easter' ".


I realized that she'd understood all my linguistic attempts at their true banality, and beat a hasty retreat.






footnote: the Scraper never did work out what he had been told in either of the two shops
but did his heroic best to repeat the words as he heard them in his diary.

The Scraper's Diary, Wednesday, March 26th, 1947, Verden

Street Scene in Bremen

We packed the lorries at 8.30 this morning, sat in the bus at 9 and left at 9.30. we drove to Oldenburg and thence to the American Ferry in American Bremen.

On being told that it would be four hours before we got across, we drove to Wesermunde and took two hours to cross. We drove in a sort of large Y shape South from Wilhelmshaven to Oldenburg and Bremen, then back up North to the bridge at Wesermunde and South again to Bremen and Verden.

Thus we took over four hours to cross the river Weser from Bremen West to Bremen East on the other side. We arrived here at 8.30, having had no food except three sandwiches each for over twelve hours, having been travelling for eleven hours and having played 144 rounds of solo, with over a hundred pass rounds in eight hours continuous play.

Bremen is lousy with Yanks and terribly bombed. I never dreamt to see such utter, efficient devastation. Occasional gaunt walls leapt up to the sunset, much as Egyptian obelisks do in cheap water colours.

A fleece of clouds was crimson above the West and ragged in the wind, like a sea of fire, unquenchable.

As I said, we got here at 8.30 and as we were expected at 1 pm, there was nothing ready. No plates, no lights in the rooms, no blankets. Now, at last, at 10 o'clock, everything is sorted out, all kit unpacked and everyone fed.

Goodnight.

o-o-o-o-o

Thursday, March 27th, Verden

the smell of cheap scent, like the remembered touch of a silk stocking...........

grey clouds across a sombre sky, and all around, like the dubious security of a residential suburb.........

Is it better to know the agony of solitude, or is this disillusion a release, a kindness?

My old Gods look hollowly at their crumbling feet and as I am now without my painful worship, I feel a new emptiness, a sequestration........

Where ignorance is bliss.........

And yet I know that for the rest of my life I shall build new temples to my old, nostalgic, wistful, often profane deities, and, with a little tremor in my heart, I shall turn away when the rain dissolves their feet.

The Scraper's Diary, March 25th, 1947,

Wilhelmshaven ( continued )

The Writing Room, Church of Scotland,

Wilhelmshaven has been bombed quite efficiently, and is largely in ruins, at least, it is in the centre of the town, and by the docks.

Out of the window, in the tranquil air, I can see a few gaunt walls and grotesque brick remains, that are rapidly greying to silhouette. A church tower, sturdy, but gutted, points a purposeless finger at the urgent clouds and emphasizes the delicate tracery of the trees, black against a fading sky.

A lorry has pulled up in the street below and vomits soldiers and their profanations on to the pavement. They enter the canteen and are happily lost to hearing, and the scene assumes a strange peace, somehow a harmony, from its intrinsic decay and senility.

At Dusseldorf you left barracks, turned left, turned right, and thumbed a lift into the town, over two miles away. There were shops plentifully among the devastation.

At Dortmund you turned left, crossed a field, and turned left again, and then hitchhiked or walked the mile and a half to the centre, as you pleased, and there was scarcely anything but rubble in the centre.

At Osnabruck you turned right and hoped for a lift. It is two miles from barracks to town and though the town does not appear excessively damaged, there are few shops open there.

At Oldenburg the camp is but a mile from the town, where all shops are open, and full of many things to take home, if you have marks or cigarettes.

And here, at Wilhelmshaven, you leave barracks and scarcely any vehicles pass you as you walk the mile and a half into the uninteresting town.

However, we are only two in a room, and each room has running water.

The Scraper's Diary Sunday March 23rd, 1947, Oldenburg

Played in the German Church this morning. Most monotonous, bland service; the Padre intoned platitudes most prosaically and automatically, and the audience, - sorry congregation - intoned the responses with the same lack of inspiration. They sounded far from convinced. They confessed themselves smugly sinful and felt loads better.

Tonight they are probably swearing and black-marketeering.

Bah.

Concert this afternoon, we played badly.

o-o-o-o-o

Monday, March 24th

We went to a whist drive last night, Mike and I, and I won the booby prize of a bottle of Brylcreem. Good Show.

This morning we had a medical inspection, F.F.I. (free from infection), also a gum inspection for gingivitis. After that we were dusted with de-lousing powder and sent home. They don't seem to think much of the Band.

Then we, or rather I and three others, were interrogated by the military police about the recent loss or theft of the banerettes and the oboe. As I was the last to see the oboe, I am regarded most suspiciously.

Now I must go and testify at a court of enquiry.

o-o-o-o-o

Tuesday, March 5th, Wilhelmshaven

Arrived here at eleven, after an hour's solo whist. It's more sunny today.

From time to time during the journey someone would come out with a witty remark or a new verse of a comic song about the loss of the oboe. It's getting monotonous already.

We stood by from 5 o'clock last night for the court of enquiry. At 7.50 I was called in, sworn in and questioned for five minutes. Half an hour later I signed eight copies of my statement, and that was that.

I feel weak and tired. It must be the air, most enervating.

o-o-o-o-o

Evening, Church of Scotland Writing Room, Wilhelmshaven,

I've got indigestion, bad indigestion, and it's caused through eating too much, and by the unaccustomed richness of the food I have consumed out here.

I thought, two days ago in Oldenburg, that my lassitude and lack of energy had something to do with the air, but now, after a mild attack of diarrhoea, and having been belching for hours, I know differently. It is nearly seven o'clock, and I have eaten one roll, and drunk one cup of tea since one and yet I do not feel hungry. That proves it, I'm overnourished.

The Scraper's Diary, Oldenburg, Saturday, March 22nd 1947

In the Naafi Club Writing Room.

Light cigarette to try and collect thoughts.

Read Punch to regain composure.

Where has composure gone? Don't know.

This is a lovely old town, with a beautiful Gothic Church and a flourishing Black Market.

The girls by day look pure and lovely, and a credit to their country. The VD rate here is 87% of those tested. Syphilis amounts to 82% of these.

I have seen a lot of little handcarts around. When parked, the shaft, vertical, looks like a miniature cross (the girls by day), but in use, is obviously merely a handle, an implement (the girls by night).

We drove over very bad, bumpy roads today; most roads are escorted by regiments of trees, plane, poplar, birch or coniferous. Saw bullock carts for the first time today.

They gave us supper of egg and chips followed by ice cream in the Officers' Mess last night, followed by beer, tea, whisky, Brandy, gin, rum, Apricot Brandy and Benedictine. I drank the last two only and a cup of tea and felt fine.

Goodnight.

o-o-o-o-o

Eighty-seven per cent.

I've walked down Piccadilly at night while the Yanks were there, but this is worse. I walked back from the Naafi tonight. It was raining, but that doesn't seem to matter. They stand in shop doorways in dark side streets, talking, but not understanding words, only inflections, keeping one eye cocked for the police.

Many of the girls have pretty faces and good figures, but many more wear flashy clothes and are overly made-up. At night all are there on business. Eighty-seven per cent of them, and most of the rest suspect cases.

There's a poster in the cookhouse, with a picture of a girl and the words :

Don't get V.D.

For Her Sake.

OR DON'T YOU CARE?

It's a bad situation.

The Scraper's Diary, Oldenburg, Thursday March 20th, 1947

Arrived here after a three-hour solo session, in which I lost fourpence.

Went into the town, it's practically unbombed, and rather like any English country town, lovely; good Naafi, YMCA and black market.

We went to the flix and saw 'The Captive Heart' and cried at it's poignancy, then came out into the same German streets and bought marks with cigarettes.

Last night was a scream. We played in the Officers' Mess, and having been given Guinness, the B.M., the B.S.M., the Sergeant and the Q. went home, leaving eight gunners and one lance-jack to finish the champagne-cocktails.

Shortly after, one of the officers asked for more music. We held a council of war and agreed to play for half an hour, if they kept us supplied with drinks. I conducted!

Luckily, I was completely sober, having learned my lesson last Saturday, but the cellist and the flautist were hardly capable of playing, while the double bass was capable of anything.

We played a few selections and waltzes and finished up with the R.A. Slow March. I was then introduced to the Colonel and he thanked us most cordially and woozily for our little contribution.

And so to bed. Several other blokes in the block were drunk, and it took me ten minutes to persuade Downs that his bed was in another room.

Heigh-ho.

The Scraper's Diary, Wednesday, March 19th, 1947, Osnabruck

Nothing about this place, except that it is less bombed, in places, than Dortmund. Also, that by another masterpiece of over-organisation, we arrived too late to give a show.

Went with B.S.M. Scott this morning to his house to inspect his piano, with an eye to its suitability for our use in the Officers' Mess. I approved of it and also of his wife, tea, cakes and son to whom I was introduced in that order. Needless to add, I also approved of B.S.M. Scott. I hope that this was reciprocated.

o-o-o-o-o

Walking delirium of Germany, the streets muddy, impersonal.

Carts rumbling over wet cobbles.

A Wagnerian vista of clouds round a watery sun. Pre-Raphaelite above.

The chatter of children in their clean fur coats or muddy rags.

Boots boots boots boots.

Eternal chemists and hairdressers.

Piles of weather beaten rubble.

People clinging to the front of crowded trams.

A ridiculous flurry of cloud, like a gaggle of distant geese.

The clinging smell of dark bread and rank cigarettes, like plaster and potato peelings.

"I wish I'd never come, straight I do."

Policemen in green overcoats.

Traffic on the right.

Forever thumbing.

A foreign tongue all round.

Clean barracks, good food.

"Naafi, chum?"

Military signs nailed to every tree.

Wide autobahn and temporary bridges.

"Spades it is."

Stone stairs and echoing corridors.

Gaunt shells of churches.

Old men burrowing in dustbins.

"I'm jarred off, straight I am."

Heavy kit and long journeys.

Selling cigarettes for marks, watches, irons.

No mail.

And the beauty of the country round.

"Bloody roll on, roll bloody on".

The Scraper's Diary, Monday, March 17th 1947

Yesterday we went in the truck to Iserlohn for a day off. A practically undamaged town, but quite uninteresting. On entering these places now, I behave almost like a soldier, and head straight for the Naafi, or the Y.M.C.A.

Having got lost on the road, we got back at 12.20 am, - two hours for what, on the right road, is only 30 km.

Everyone is very short of cigarettes, as our ration hasn't been issued this week, and we've disposed of our stocks.

o-o-o-o-o

"I wish I 'adn't come, straight I do", says Ginger in his best stage-comedian manner. "I could be all snug in bed, instead of getting bumped around on the wrong road. I'm bloody jarred off, straight I am".

"Like a flippin Sunday School outing, ain't it", says Stan. " 'ave you brought the sandwiches, Teacher?"

"Now don't worry me, dear", says Ginger, "just sit still like a good girl, and we'll be at Sarfend before you know what's up".

"Better than the old picnic party", I say, "with Dad and Ma and all the kids all dolled up for the day".

"And all the kids holding their spades and buckets" says Stan, "and getting covered with sand on the way back".

"Cor yes", says Ginger, "And old Grandma. She's been looking forward to the trip for weeks, and then gets a splitting headache, and only comes so as not to spoil it for the rest of 'em, and only makes it worse".

"And then they get on the tram", I say, " And Ma remembers she's left the gas on".

"And Dad's left the tickets behind", says Ginger. "Funny how these families always take a packet of sandwiches to eat in the old train, even if they're only in it for ten flippin' minutes".

"Then they get in the train", says Stan, "and Dad sits up straight and looks round at his flock, and gets out his old pipe and the newspaper and starts readin', and sits all anyhow till the Missus kicks him, and he sits up all straight again".

"I took the Missus to Brighton once", says Ginger, "and we got into the train coming back and saw a family party get into the train opposite, in the last carriage. You know, Dad sits there all proud and counts the kids and Ma says 'ave you got everything, dear?' and he says 'Yes', and looks all proud and all the kids are laughing away, and then the train goes out and leaves their carriage behind and he looks out of the window and says 'Strewth, the bloody train's gone', and all the kids get cryin' and the Missus starts naggin' and Dad loses his temper, and they march off, and Ma says 'It's ruined my day, I wish I'd never come" and he kicks the boy to stop him hollerin'. We nearly killed ourselves laughing".

"And they always have packets of winkles", I say, "or shrimps and chuck the shells all over the place".

"And the old business man in the carriage", says Stan, " right in the corner, all dolled up and one of the kids sits next to him and he pats him and says "Hullo, sonny, go away, you sticky little thing".

"Something always goes wrong", says Ginger, "and Ma gets naggin' and wishes she hadn't come and they leave something in the train. Laugh? I kill myself every time".

"This is Iserlohn", says someone.

"It's not, ye know"

"It is, ye know"

"It's not, ye know"

"It is, ye know"

Ginger sighs. "I wish I 'adn't come", he says, "Straight, I do. I'm bloody jarred off. Roll on, roll bloody on".

o-o-o-o-o

I am again forced, in the queue before the Y.M.C.A. shop, to realize just how much bartering means to the average soldier.

"What've they got, soap? that's worth ten", meaning cigarettes. or -

"Pity the coffee's finished, that's worth forty" -

Still, why should I worry? I who think of coach trips in terms of solo schools?

o-o-o-o-o

I picked up part of some deceased creature's jaw-bone from a pile of rubble this afternoon.

Sets you thinking, you know.

So what?

And Again : The Scraper's Diary, Sunday Morning

Well, I did it, I got drunk.

But whenever I achieve a sudden ambition like that, I wish afterwards that I had not.

Perhaps that should be a lesson to me.

I'm sober again now, but last night - phew!

Mike and I went into the beer bar at 8.15; the party was not there, but a friendly bombardier invited us to help him drink some of the dozen or so glasses that were on the table. He had already emptied twenty. We accepted.

Here let me say that German glasses hold more than a half pint, and that the beer, which is chemical beer, is not so innocuous as it looks and tastes.

After four glasses, I lost count, and began to feel a little merry. My eyes needed reminding to focus on anyone, when I walked out, my legs needed coercing to obey me.

The waitress came up. I gave her a shilling and she brought back six more glasses, and then they stopped serving.

We drank on. I emptied about thirteen glasses, Mike about eight. By this time I was thoroughly, uproariously drunk. I could not stand straight. Every time I put my foot down the floor jumped up to meet it. Mike was unsteady on his pins too, and as he grew drunker, so an episode in the Y.M.C.A. grew funnier to him (the microphone fell off the stage), and he kept remembering it, and going into fits of laughter.

The place was nearly empty, and the attendants were urging us to leave; we emptied the last glasses, and I suddenly realized that I was going to be sick, so I lurched outside and vomited copiously. I felt much better then, and managed to walk back to the billet.

Soon after I reentered our room, I realized that I wanted to be sick again, so I opened the window and leaned out. I spewed the rest of the beer, and kept on retching long after my stomach was empty. Mike decided, ridiculously, to go for a walk, so he went. Fifteen minutes later, when he staggered back, I was still leaning out of the window, but in the meantime I had collapsed dizzily onto a bed and then gone to the window again.

With Mike's aid I staggered, almost unconscious, to the lavatory, where I stayed for fifteen minutes and emptied my stomach again and again. Then Mike helped me back again.

Don't imagine that he was sober, he was wimbling all over the place, but was in a better state than me.

Between us, we got me to bed, and I immediately fell sound asleep. My last words (so they say)

were "Never again".

When I was woken, after over eight hours deep slumber, I felt perfectly normal, with no hangover.

I have a dim recollection of reassuring Mike that a cigarette he put down was really going round and round, and also of the feeling that nothing was worth while. I wanted to die, my stomach and head were performing the most complicated rhumba, and my eyes seemed to be rolling in a complete circle.

Never again, Never, never again.